Wednesday, October 31, 2012

If reporting from the Washington Times is accurate, it looks like the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin was in on the plot to attack the U.S. mission in Benghazi. According to an October 27, 2012 report, Libyan witnesses from the Benghazi neighborhood where the U.S. compound was located told reporters from the Associated Press (AP) that "150 bearded gunmen, some wearing the Afghan-style tunics favored by Islamic militants began sealing off the streets" leading to the facility "around nightfall."

The Department of State "Background Briefing on Libya," provided by telephone to reporters on October 9, 2012 states that Ambassador Christopher Stevens held his last meeting of the day on September 11 with the Turkish diplomat from 7:30pm to 8:30pm and then escorted him out to the compound gate to bid farewell. At that point, the briefing states, "Everything is calm at 8:30 p.m. There's nothing unusual."

But the AP witnesses said that, "The neighbors all described the militants setting up checkpoints around the compound at about 8 p.m." The checkpoints were described as being manned by bearded jihadis in pickup trucks mounted with heavy machine guns and bearing the logo of the Al-Qaeda terror franchise, Ansar al-Shariah.

That means that the Turkish Consul General would have had to pass out through the blockade as he departed the American compound and left the area. There is no record that he phoned a warning to his American colleague, the one he'd just had dinner with, Ambassador Stevens. Given the description of the blockade around the American compound and of the jihadis and their trucks that were manning it, it seems unlikely that the he somehow just failed to notice. "[N]o one could get out or in," according to one neighbor interviewed by the AP.

Except for the Turkish Consul General, it would appear.

Stevens Was a Sitting Duck

Stevens was a sitting duck, a target surrounded by the jihadist attackers who shortly would take his life and that of his Public Affairs Officer, Sean Smith.

Similarly, this raises the question of the Libyan gate guards from the "February 17 Martyrs Brigade," the jihadi militia subcontracted by the British firm Blue Mountain, which was the prime contractor for the U.S. Benghazi compound security contract.

What did they know and when did they know it? Even if the Americans, inside the buildings behind the compound walls and getting ready to retire for the night, were not aware of what was happening in the streets around them, the Libyans of the Martyrs Brigade surely must have been. Yet they provided no warning to the Ambassador and his people either, because again, according to the State Department briefing, the American security officers inside were taken by surprise when the first gunshots and explosions rang out around 9:40 pm.

The State Department must have known much of this when it provided the briefing. So must have the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council and the White House. More than likely, the State Department knew in advance of the Ambassador's meeting schedule for that day, including his plans for a final dinner meeting with Akin.

To date, however, none of them has mentioned the curious circumstance that Ali Sait Akin knew the American Ambassador and his staff at the Benghazi compound were being set up for slaughter and did nothing to warn them.

The topic of discussion between the Ambassador and his dinner guest has not been revealed, but it would seem to be of even more significance now that it has become obvious the Turkish diplomat and by extension, his government, were at least to some degree complicit in the attack against Ambassador Stevens and the others.

European news organizations are pressing for legislation that threatens Google's entire business model. The threat is intensifying in France, where the president has sided with the domestic news industry. Read more.

Israel's defense minister says Iran's decision to use over a third of its medium-enriched uranium for civilian purposes this year postponed its development of a nuclear weapon by eight to 10 months. Read more.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

A Deeply Concerning Picture is Emerging

By Clare M. Lopez

Data points continue to accumulate about the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. The picture that is beginning to emerge from connecting those dots is deeply concerning on multiple levels. Two related issues dominate this analysis: The systematic stripping of security protection from the Benghazi mission prior to the 9/11 anniversary attack and the cold-blooded refusal to send or even permit local help the night of the attack.

As Fox News Bureau Chief of Intelligence Catherine Herridge suggested on the "Mike Huckabee" show on Oct. 27, both of these critical subjects may have been driven by a perceived need to cover up the likely purpose for the existence of that mission in the first place, i.e., to serve as a U.S. command hub for the movement of weapons out of Libya to Syrian rebels fighting to bring down the Bashar Al-Assad regime.

It has now been established through the persistent work of Congressional leadership figures and such investigative journalists, media and talk show hosts as the Fox News network, the Glenn Beck show, Michael Coren at Canada's Sun News, Aaron Klein at World Net Daily and Diana West that the Benghazi mission played a central role in a U.S. government policy of "engaging, legitimating, enriching and emboldening Islamists who have taken over or are ascendant in much of the Middle East," as Center for Security Policy president, Frank Gaffney, put it.

According to media reporting, Benghazi was staffed by CIA operatives whose job may have been not just to secure and destroy dangerous weapons (like RPGs and SAMs) looted from former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi's stockpiles during and after the 2011 revolution, but also perhaps to facilitate their onward shipment to the Al-Qaeda- and Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian opposition.

Arms for Al Qaeda?

President Barack Obama signed an intelligence finding sometime in early 2012 that authorized U.S. support for the Syrian rebels and by mid-June 2012, CIA operatives reportedly were on the Turkish-Syrian border helping to steer weapons deliveries to selected Syrian rebel groups. According to an Oct. 14, 2012 New York Times article, most of those arms were going to "hard-line Islamic jihadists."

One of those jihadis may well be Abdelhakim Belhadj, former leader of the Al-Qa'eda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and head of the Tripoli Military Council after Qaddafi's ouster. During the 2011 revolt in Libya, Belhadj was almost certainly a key contact of the U.S. liaison to the Libyan opposition, Christopher Stevens.

In November 2011, Belhadj was reported to have met with Syrian Free Army (SFA) leaders in Istanbul, Turkey, as well as on the Turkish-Syrian border. Further, Belhadj's contact with the SFA comes in the context of official policy adopted by the post-Qaddafi Libyan "government," which sent a delegation to Turkey to offer arms and possibly fighters to the Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. "There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria," according to a Libyan source quoted in a November, 2011 Telegraph report.

The multilateral U.S.-Libya-Turkey agreement to get weapons into the hands of Syrian rebels – which were known to be dominated by Al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood elements -- by working with and through Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist figures like Belhadj, seemed confirmed by the appearance of a Libyan-flagged vessel, Al-Entisar, which docked at the Turkish port of Iskanderun on September 6, 2012.

Suspected of carrying weapons bound for the Syrian rebels, the ship's cargo reportedly included Russian-designed, shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS, RPGs and surface-to-air missiles—all of them just the sort of weapons available in Libya.

Meeting with Turkish Consul General

Stevens' last meeting in Benghazi the night he was killed was with the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, who is variously reported to have been there to discuss a weapons transfer or a warning about the possible compromise of the Libyan weapons pipeline to Syria. Whatever the topic of Ambassador Stevens' discussion with Akin, he clearly and knowingly put himself in harm's way to be there, in Benghazi, on the night of September 11.

The urgency that compelled Stevens to Benghazi that night seems especially difficult to understand given what was known to him as well as to senior levels of the Obama administration about the extremely dangerous situation in post-Qaddafi Libya.

It is all the more baffling then that, in view of the obvious priority that the U.S. government had placed on its Libya-to-Syria weapons pipeline operation, such a systematic effort in the weeks leading up to the September 11 attack was dedicated to stripping the Benghazi base of the security protection it so desperately needed in a deteriorating Libyan security environment and despite the repeated pleas of Ambassador Stevens and others in both Tripoli and Benghazi for more security.

From at least February, 2012 onward, the Regional Security Officer (RSO) at the U.S. Tripoli Embassy, Eric Nordstrom, had urged that U.S. security measures in Libya be expanded, citing dozens of security incidents by "Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, including Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)…"

Security Team Ordered to Leave Libya

In August 2012, Stevens reported that the security situation in Benghazi was deteriorating, yet in spite of this, the 16-man Site Security Team assigned to Libya, comprised of Special Forces led by SF LTC Andy Wood, was ordered out of Libya, contrary to the Ambassador's stated desire that they stay.

Note that, at any time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could have ordered the deployment to Benghazi of additional security experts from the Department of Security (DoS) Bureau of Diplomatic Security (or Diplomatic Security Service—DSS), but apparently chose not to do so.

Instead, DoS hired a British firm, Blue Mountain, to manage its security in Benghazi, and Blue Mountain subcontracted the job to a local jihadist militia called the February 17 Martyrs Brigade who have known Muslim Brotherhood ties.

Furthermore, Nordstrom testified at the October 11, 2012 Congressional hearings that "in deference to sensitivity to Libyan practice, the guards at Benghazi were unarmed"-- an inexplicable practice for a place as dangerous as Benghazi.

Then, in what may have been the attack "green light," on September 10, 2012, AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan number two, Abu Yahya al-Libi, who had been killed in a June, 2012 drone strike in Pakistan. The timing suggests that al-Zawahiri may have given the attack go-ahead after receiving word that Stevens had arrived in Benghazi that day—further suggesting that perhaps AQ knew of Stevens' travel plans.

Once the attack unfolded at the Benghazi base, it quickly became apparent that the minimal number of U.S. and local security staff was completely unequal to the scores of heavily armed jihadist attackers swarming the compound. And yet, despite a live-streaming video from an overhead drone, plus cables and cell phone calls that, altogether, must have been received by hundreds of administration diplomatic, intelligence and military officials (including the U.S. President, Vice President, Secretaries of Defense and State, and Directors of National Intelligence and CIA), military support from regional bases was denied repeatedly to the besieged Benghazi defenders.Permission Denied

Worse yet, former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods, who was providing security for CIA operatives at the Benghazi annex facility, and Glen Dougherty, who had arrived on a rescue flight dispatched by the CIA Chief of Station in Tripoli, repeatedly were denied permission by their CIA chain of command on the ground to go to the aid of Ambassador Stevens and the others.

Eventually, they went anyway, and succeeded in saving many lives because of their moral and physical courage. Once back at the CIA annex, they all came under heavy fire there too. Again, Dougherty and Woods requested military backup, at least to silence the mortar fire that they had been able to identify by laser painting it. They fought on alone for hours, but when no help came, that mortar barrage eventually took both their lives and seriously injured others.

When asked why he didn't authorize military assets to scramble to Benghazi's defense, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta claimed that he didn't know what was going on and "could not put forces at risk in that situation." This is patently false on both counts: Panetta most certainly did know that an American Ambassador and other staff were under military assault by jihadist forces who had invaded the sovereign territory of a U.S. diplomatic facility. Whether U.S. military assets -- either air support or Special Forces -- could have arrived in time to save lives is unknown at this point, but the administration's refusal to say when the president first learned that Benghazi was under attack, that the ambassador was in peril and that the Al-Qaeda-linked Libyan jihadist group, Ansar al-Shariah, had taken credit for the attack invites speculation.

Refusal to Comment

The White House refusal to comment on when exactly the President first met with the National Security Council after the attack began doesn't help either. (And the weeks of deliberately false statements from a range of administration figures who tried to claim that an obscure trailer for a film no one had ever seen was to blame for the Benghazi debacle only confirms suspicions about the administration capitulation to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) demands for limits on free speech.)

For his part, CIA Director David Petraeus has denied that either he or anyone else at CIA refused assistance to Dougherty and Woods, saying that "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate." This leaves only the President himself responsible for the decision to allow the Benghazi base to fall and four Americans to die.

How could he or any of those present when this momentous decision was made not have tried to make every effort imaginable to defend American territory and save American lives? House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa believes President Obama had a political motive for rejecting Ambassador Stevens' security requests because he wanted to show that conditions in Libya were improving, possibly to justify U.S. intervention in the Libyan revolution or even help pave the way for oil company investment.

Whatever the thinking that left a U.S. mission abroad so undefended that it practically constituted an open invitation to Al-Qaeda, and then, in cold blood, refused to launch military support in defense of Americans fighting and dying to defend U.S. sovereign territory from jihadi assault, the cover-up is fast becoming the worse failure. It is time for administration leaders, from the President on down, to explain both their actions and their failures to act.

Monday, October 29, 2012

As predicted and reported by Foreign Confidential™, after entering office, U.S. President Barack Obama sought to engage (align with) Islamist Iran in a Grand Bargain aimed at pacifying Pakistan and Afghanistan. Israel opposed the initiative, which Iran rejected. Read more.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

North Korea may be moving to increase the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal. This escalation follows the demise of the February 29, 2012 reciprocal arrangement between Pyongyang and Washington, and North Korean statements that it will bolster its nuclear deterrent.

A top UN official, Richard Falk, who is permanent investigator for the Human Rights Council, accused “the organized Jewish community" and the U.S. government of being “responsible for the massive and enduring confiscation of Palestinian land and rights.” Read more.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Gulf state is trying to lure the Foreign Terrorist Organization Hamas--effectively, the Sunni Islamist, Palestinian Arab arm of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood--away from Shiite Islamist Iran. Qatar is also trying to build Arab street cred relative to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to create a string of Islamic republics--a program that is inherently threatening to the anachronistic autocracies of the Arab world.

Fear of the MB's rise--which is supported by the Obama administration, which asserts that the organization represents the so-called moderate wing of Islamism, a clerical fascist creed--has prompted the Gulf monarchies, including Saudi Arabia, to support even more extreme Salafists, who openly sympathize with Al Qaeda.

Monday, October 22, 2012

More proof--over here--that Al Qaeda is far from dead, has merely been degraded, not decimated, as claimed by the Obama administration--which has used drone strikes on the terrorist group and the killing of its leader, Osama Bin Laden, to mask a pro-Islamist foreign policy.

Foreign Confidential™ has learned that the ECOWAS-member nations of West Africa are preparing to cooperate with France in order to crush the Islamist/Al Qaeda groups controlling northern Mali--an aggregation that includes local religious fanatics, Ansar Eddine, and the Mouvement pour l’unicité et le jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest. The Islamist groups, which are allied with the Algerian-run Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Nigeria's Boko Haram, are minting money from smuggling drugs, weapons, and people.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Nazi-like regime and its terrorist proxy appear to be preparing a cyber-sneak attack on the United States. Read more.

Foreign Confidential™ comment: the cyber-threat is similar to the EMP threat. Successive U.S. administrations have neglected the threats; but the Obama administration, which has made outreach to "the Muslim world" the foundation of a failed foreign policy, has taken neglect to a new level--deliberate deception.

Terrorists Planned to Kill Thousands, Assassinate Diplomats

Al Qaeda is far from decimated, contrary to the claims of the Obama administration. Moreover, the administration's unnecessary intervention in Libya and meddling in Syria--on the side of Islamists, including Al Qaeda supporters and sympathizers--has created new bases and opportunities for the terrorist organization and its affiliates. More than 11 years after 9/11, Al Qaeda is expanding, spreading, morphing and blending; the line that separates it from Islamist organizations that the administration deems OK to engage (collaborate with) is blurring.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Drone strikes on some … but not all … of the known Islamist leaders and supporters of the attack on the consulate in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador … a phony deal with nuclear arming, missile mad Iran … at least one October surprise could still be forthcoming from an administration that has overtly aligned the United States with rightwing political Islam (also known as Islamism, or radical Islam).

To this day, the administration isn't really opposed to the Iranian regime, favoring reform rather than revolution, a mellowing of the monstrous mullahocracy instead of its utter destruction. President Obama entered the White House determined to appease and engage (collaborate with) Tehran's turbaned tyranny. He hoped (hope and change!) to strike a Grand Bargain with Iran in order to pacify Pakistan and Afghanistan. But the atomic ayatollah and his maniac-in-chief, the Holocaust denying (but Hitler admiring) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rebuffed Obama; so he turned to Turkey, a full NATO member in the grip of an Islamist party bent on reviving the Ottoman Empire, as a counter to Iran's imperialist push.

He turned to Turkey's Sunni Islamist imperialists as opposed to Iran's Shiite Islamist imperialists ,,, and to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which Obama emboldened to overthrow the peace preserving, pro-American Mubarak government … and to all kinds of Islamists … in Libya and Syria … in the belief that it is possible to harness the energy of the Islamist wave, which he and his advisers regard as both unstoppable and somehow progressive, without being drowned by it.

President Lifts Page from Bush Playbook on Iraq

Regarding Libya and Egypt, President Obama essentially argues that he can't fail because, like Bush before him in Iraq, the outcomes of the disastrous interventions will only be known (if ever) in some distant future time. Click here and here.

Democrats refuse to condemn the debacle in Libya because they stupidly believe that they must back the President's perfidious, pro-Islamist foreign policy--conducted under cover of degrading Al Qaeda and killing its leader--if they also agree with the President on, say, health insurance, or the obvious need to stimulate the economy during a depression.

Republicans are stupidly restrained in their criticism of the debacle because their party line is that the unnecessary intervention in Libya--which is blowing back in America's face--really was necessary but was incorrectly managed by the President and his advisers.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

An exclusive report alleging that an Obama October surprise is in the works--a phony deal to end sanctions on Iran's monstrous mullahocracy in return for its halting part of its nuclear program. Read more.

A Rapidly Unfolding, Deeply Disturbing Story

By Clare M. Lopez

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article by Clare M. Lopez, one of the best analysts around, is riveting--and troubling, to put matters mildly. Foreign Confidential™ has repeatedly criticized the Obama administration for effectively narrowing the definition of the Islamist enemy to Al Qaeda alone under political cover of degrading the terrorist group (not "decimating" it, as claimed by the administration and its supporters) and killing Al Qaeda's leader, Osama Bin Laden. It now appears, however, that we were wrong; incredibly, even Al Qaeda itself, or, at the very least, its ideological allies, are regarded by the administration as all right to appease and engage (align with), as shown by the deeply disturbing information that is surfacing in the aftermath of the … September 11... attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The entire affair calls … cries out … for a Congressional investigation.

The day after the big Obama-Romney debate, as media and politicians were engaging in the usual after-action assessment frenzy, some of the most important issues surrounding the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, remain unaddressed.

While it clearly matters (a lot) if and when the President told the truth to the American public about the terrorist nature of that attack and why the Department of State refused repeated pleas from its own diplomats in Libya for more and better security, the deeper, unaddressed issue is about the relationship of the U.S. government, Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya with Al Qaeda.

During the 2011 Libyan revolt against Muammar Qaddafi, reckless U.S. policy flung American forces and money into the conflict on the side of the rebels, who were known at the time to include Al Qaeda elements. Previously the number two official at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Christopher Stevens was named as the official U.S. liaison to the Libyan opposition in March, 2011.

Ambassador Authorized to Aid Al Qaeda Sympathizers

Stevens was tasked with helping to coordinate U.S. assistance to the rebels, whose top military commander, Abdelhakim Belhadj, was the leader of the Al Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). That means that Stevens was authorized by the U.S. Department of State and the Obama administration to aid and abet individuals and groups that were, at a minimum, allied ideologically with Al Qaeda, the jihadist terrorist organization that attacked the homeland on the first 9/11, the one that's not supposed to exist anymore after the killing of its leader, Osama bin Laden, on May 2, 2012.

Although Belhadj reportedly now has moved on to Syria to help lead the fight against the Assad regime being waged by the Syrian Free Army (SFA), other Libyan fighters, who were formerly members of his LIFG and other Al Qaeda affiliates formed a new terror militia in Libya (and elsewhere) called Ansar al-Shariah (Supporters of Sharia/Islamic Law).

According to an August, 2012 report from the Library of Congress and the Kronos organization, "Al-Qaeda in Libya: A Profile," Ansar al-Shariah is an Al Qaeda franchise operation, established in Libya with the assistance of senior Al Qaeda operatives dispatched from Pakistan specifically to supervise the set up of a new clandestine Al Qaeda network in Libya that would refrain from using the Al Qaeda name.

The Derna, Libya Ansar al-Shariah cell is led by a former GITMO detainee named Sufian Ben Qhumu. The September 11, 2012 attack on the Benghazi consulate compound that killed Ambassador Stevens, his staffer Sean Smith and the two Navy SEALs was directed and led by Ansar al-Shariah.

Unanswered, Unasked Questions

One of the key unanswered, even unasked, questions about the U.S. and Ambassador Stevens relationship with Abdelhakim Belhadj concerns not so much the 2011 period of the Libyan revolt, but rather what followed. Was Ambassador Stevens still in touch with Belhadj and/or other Al Qaeda-linked figures even after Belhadj traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, in November, 2011 to make contact with the Syrian Free Army?

According to August, 2012 reports leaked to the media, sometime earlier in 2012, President Obama signed an intelligence finding to permit the CIA and other US government agencies to provide support to the Syrian rebels, whose ranks are reported to be dominated by Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other jihadist fighters who already are supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other jihadist regimes. Was Belhadj a conduit for U.S. support, perhaps via Turkey?

It might be recalled that, according to the Department of State's transcript of a October 9, 2012 telephone conference call held to brief reporters on what happened in Benghazi, the final meeting that Ambassador Stevens held the night of September 11, 2012 before the attack began was with a Turkish diplomat.

Mysterious Meeting in AQ Territory

Was that the meeting that was so important that the ambassador felt compelled to slip into Al Qaeda-held Benghazi on the anniversary of the original 9/11 attacks, knowing that Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had called for revenge for the killing of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al-Libi, concerned that he might have been on an Al Qaeda hit list and fully aware that he was terribly exposed with completely inadequate security? Was Ambassador Stevens directing a weapons pipeline from Libya to the Syrian rebels with Turkish assistance?

As noted by at least one observant blogger, two buildings appear on the overhead image of the Benghazi consular compound that may be viewed behind State Department official Charlene Lamb during her October 10, 2012 Congressional testimony but were not mentioned at all in the October 9, 2012 briefing mentioned above. Might these two warehouse-like buildings be storage facilities for Libyan weapons either bought back or otherwise collected prior to onward shipment?

The New York Times reported in July, 2012 that CIA officers were operating out of southern Turkey to help channel weapons to fighters supposedly not allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. In a October 14 piece, though, the Times asserted flatly that "Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups…" And while U.S. officials continue to stick to claims that they are not providing arms directly to the Syrian rebels, but only channeling weapons that come from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, reports that those rebels now have surface-to-air missiles call to mind the thousands of such weapons looted from Muammar Qaddafi's stockpiles during and after the revolt that ousted him in October 2011.

Surface-to-Air Missiles

On October 17, 2012, Reuters reported that the Syrian rebels had acquired surface-to-air missiles, forcing the Syrian government air force to conduct bombings from higher altitudes. An August, 2012 video posted online purports to show a Syrian government helicopter hit with an anti-aircraft missile, on fire and spiraling to the ground, where it exploded into a fireball.

Many questions remain about what happened in Benghazi that night, not least of which is why Belhadj and Ansar al-Shariah would turn on Stevens, who had been their staunch if naïve ally, when his killing in the course of the attack on the consulate likely would end any weapons supply to the Syrian rebels he might have been directing.

Was marking the 9/11 date with revenge for the death of al-Libi more important in the eyes of Al Qaeda than the preservation of this particular weapons source? Were there weapons in those two buildings on September 11, 2012 and were they looted that night? Had Stevens and/or the U.S. somehow failed to come through with an understood commitment of some kind?

In any case, false information about the 9/11 attack in Benghazi being the fault of an online video that seems to have originated with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) James Clapper (perhaps with the collaboration of CIA Director David Petraeus) was put out and repeated by senior administration officials for days following the attack.

"[F]alse information was either knowingly disseminated or was directed to be put out by senior policy officials for political reasons," says Bill Gertz, citing intelligence officials. Some of those alleged "political reasons" may have had to do with ridiculous claims about the demise of Al Qaeda and the false promises of an "Arab Spring," but others may be more deeply buried in an Al Qaeda-linked weapons supply line that was never supposed to become public.

The acting commander of the Nazi-like regime's SS-like military force is threatening to destroy Israel if it attacks Iran's nuclear program. Read more.

His Hitlerian rhetoric--notice the reference to "global battles"--must be taken seriously. The regime clearly intends to launch terrorist and other strikes against Israeli and American targets worldwide, including, possibly, suicide strikes in--and sea-based attacks on--American coastal cities.

Iran should already have been subjected to an oil and fuel blockade. In fact, the regime should have been crushed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 by waves of truly devastating aerial strikes without any need for a ground war.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

So-called Salafists--jihadists who openly sympathize with Al Qaeda and probably include AQ members among their ranks--are challenging Hamas for control of the Gaza mini-state. Some Salafists have armed themselves with smuggled Libyan weapons, including antiaircraft missiles. Read more.

The Obama administration attempted to engage (align with) Iran in a Grand Bargain. In return, Iran accelerated its nuclear arms program--and plotted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.

1. Is there a meaningful deterrent against an anonymous atomic attack on the United States? If not--if there isn't a meaningful deterrent against a nuclear attack by terrorists or by enemy states using terrorists to strike the U.S. in a deniable way--how do you plan to prevent an atrocity like this from ever happening?

2. Is there any defense against a seemingly civilian, cargo ship-launched nuclear attack on the United States--including both a direct strike on a U.S. coastal city and an EMP attack? If there isn't a defense against a ship-based attack on the U.S. homeland, why isn't there one, and what do you intend to do about it?

Monday, October 15, 2012

Thinking the Unthinkable

What the Obama administration isn't saying: sanctions and diplomacy without end … a process without red lines … are practically certain to end in a nuclear-armed Iran.
What then?

What is to be done if Iran one day uses "crippling sanctions" as a pretext to declare itself a nuclear power--or detonate a nuclear device?

What is to be done if Iran manages to not only produce enough nuclear weapons, including warheads and bombs, to deter an attack on Iranian territory, but also announces that it has deployed a fleet of nuclear-armed ships--cargo vessels flying flags of convenience--capable of destroying U.S. coastal cities and perhaps even the U.S. itself through an EMP strike?

Not for nothing have Iran and North Korea developed and test-fired containerized ballistic missile launch systems--from freighters.

Big Blow to Obama Strategy

Step by step, Syria is following the Libyan script for an Islamist takeover … made in the West. Read more.

It didn't have to be this way. Right after 9/11, the Bush administration blew an opportunity to turn the Assad regime away from Iran--which should have been subjected to massive aerial attacks resulting in the destruction of the Islamist regime. More recently, once the Islamist insurrection in Syria threatened to get out of hand, the Obama administration should have sought Russian cooperation for the creation of a federal--and politically neutral--Syrian state comprised of autonomous cantons, divided roughly along ethnic and religious lines, with international security guarantees, assured maintenance of Russia's naval facility at Tartus and compensation to Russian arms firms for loss of business (following loss of business in Libya as a result of the needless intervention there by the United States and NATO under so-called humanitarian cover).

From allowing Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden and Taliban head Mullah Omar and their most senior commanders to flee Afghanistan and needlessly invading Iraq, a contained secular enemy with no weapons of mass destruction, to the intervention in Libya, which was not only contained but an actual asset in the war against AQ and radical Islam, the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which resulted in the overthrow of the peace-preserving, pro-Western Mubarak regime--an American ally for three decades--and the destructive, dangerous meddling in Syria, again, on "humanitarian" grounds, American foreign policy is a disastrous … potentially catastrophic … mess.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

The next Presidential campaign debate is scheduled to take place this Tuesday night. Will Republican candidate Mitt Romney clearly and unequivocally condemn and explain President Obama's pro-Islamist foreign policy?

One hopes Romney will do exactly that--if not now, when?

It's not enough to simply say, for example, that Obama undermined Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, an American ally for three decades who aided the fight against Al Qaeda and preserved the peace with Israel. Romney must make the point that the Obama administration allied itself with the Muslim Brotherhood and emboldened its overthrow of the Mubarak regime in line with the administration's narrowing of the definition of the Islamist enemy to Al Qaeda alone, for all practical purposes, and a policy of supporting so-called moderate Islamism--akin to backing and believing in moderate fascism during World War II or moderate Stalinism during the Cold War.

Similarly, it's not enough to argue that Obama "led from behind"--was a follower instead of a leader--in Libya. Not when the intervention in the Arab nation was unnecessary in the first place. Not given the intervention's outcome--destruction of a country and replacement of a seemingly crazy--but clearly contained--secular dictator with whom the West, rightly or wrongly, had made an important deal and, as part of that deal, had been turned into a valuable asset in the anti-Al Qaeda/anti-Islamist struggle.

The straight line from Obama’s Libya policy of empowering Islamists to the Benghazi massacre is rarely discussed. Maybe it would be clearer if the Republican establishment had not ardently supported Obama’s war against Libya. Maybe it would be clearer if Romney and Ryan stopped sounding nearly as delusional about the “Arab Spring” as Obama and Biden do. Maybe it would be clearer if Romney and Ryan stopped talking about reprising the Libya debacle in Syria, joined at the hip to what they call “our ally Turkey” — Hamas’s new sugar daddy and staunchest defender. It would surely be welcome if the GOP ticket started diagnosing “spring fever” instead of manifesting its symptoms.

In Benghazi, we see the wages of the disease. The pathogen was not a video. Want to know why our people were left unprotected and why mounds of intelligence foreshadowing peril were ignored? Don’t look to Obama’s vice president, look to Obama’s policy.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

The Libya attack/embassy security story grows more scandalous by the day. Read more.

Comment: Critics are right to drill deeply and to demand answers to disturbing questions, given the sickening spinby an administration apparently determined to never let facts get in the way of a good, liberal narrative.

But the really big question is still ignored--namely, was the intervention in Libya necessary in the first place?

The answer, of course, is that the intervention was not necessary--and it has done more harm than good. The Libyan dictator was a terrible lunatic; but he had been contained and … turned … into an … asset … in the fight against Al Qaeda, specifically, and Islamist terrorism in general … and his heir apparent, a Western educated son prone to partying with the rich and famous, certainly posed no threat to U.S. national security. On the contrary, he, too, was an asset. Intervening in Libya on so-called humanitarian grounds destroyed a country and created yet another link in a chain of Islamist regimes that stretches from Tehran to Tunis (Morocco should be very afraid) and threatens to enslave the Middle East and Central Asia and drive the United States from what are arguably the world's most strategically vital regions.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Daniel Gros notes that "Switzerland has pegged its currency to the euro at a level that helps it sustain a 12% current-account surplus and one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe." He argues that "the Swiss peg involves currency manipulation that is, as far as Europe is concerned, the same order of magnitude as China’s intervention."

The Republican Party's candidate for Vice President, Congressman Paul Ryan, was forceful and convincing in his televised debate critique of the Obama administration's foreign policy. But the candidate's criticism lacked specificity. He should have explained how the administration's needless intervention in Libya, emboldening of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and meddling in Syria has helped to spread radical (rightwing political) Islam across the Arab world in line with a foreign policy that regards the clerical fascist creed as essentially progressive and worthy of support, and how the degrading--not decimating--of Al Qaeda and killing of its leader has been used to mask this pro-Islamist policy.

Regarding Iran, in addition to making the point that it is now closer than ever to becoming a nuclear weapons state, thanks to the administration's wishy-washy stance on sanctions, Ryan should have explained how the administration after entering office not only appeased but attempted to actually align with the monstrous mullahocracy, and how, after failing miserably in this perfidious effort, Washington then turned to Turkey's Islamist regime--which dreams of reviving the Ottoman Empire--as a counter to Tehran.

Ryan's reference to the national interest was refreshing; but he should have elaborated on it, and he should have made the point that the United States clearly has the military means to defeat--utterly destroy--the Iranian regime without getting involved in another land war.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Which may not be true, assuming the missiles are launched from North Korea.

Which is a dangerous assumption.

North Korea and Iran have developed and tested sea-based ballistic missile launch systems--containerized pads for use aboard seemingly civilian cargo vessels. Not for nothing have the leading outlaw nations done this.

And weep for the good people of Afghanistan … and America … whose President sought to engage (collaborate with) the worst Islamist (clerical fascist) scum on earth, apart from Al Qaeda, of course--the only Islamist group or government, apparently, which the administration regards as unfit for engagement.

Weakness Invites Aggression

Islamist Iran's proliferation partner, Stalinist/Kimist North Korea, is warning Washington, which Pyongyang perceives as weak under President Obama, that the U.S. mainland is within the range of the North's missiles. Read more.

A new Korean crisis would serve Iran's interests by diverting attention from its menacing nuclear and missile programs. There is nothing coincidental about the sudden increase in U.S.-North Korean tensions.

Monday, October 08, 2012

Courageous Career Diplomat Sworn In, Ignores Threats

A brave man, dedicated to diplomacy's highest purpose--preserving the peace. Click here to read about a real hero, Jordanian career diplomat Walid Obeidat.

Comment: the Jordanian monarchy is understandably frightened by the Obama administration's alarming support for the Muslim Brotherhood and failure to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Hence, Jordan's decision to improve relations with Israel.

The UAE is waking up … big-time … to the Muslim Brotherhood threat. Read more.

But the Muslim Brotherhood, fountainhead of Islamic clerical fascism, is backed by the Obama administration. Will the Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, explain the twisted--perfidious--pro-Islamist policy to the American people? Under cover of attacking Al Qaeda--which is rising in Libya and Syria, thanks to the administration's interventions and meddling--and killing its leader, the administration is installing Islamist regimes, spreading Islamism in democracy's name. Will Romney expose this--will he make the case--in the next, foreign policy-focused Presidential debate?

Postscript: This reporter predicts President Obama will do much better in his next encounter with the GOP challenger because foreign policy--promoting political Islam, specifically--is Obama's real passion. It was never about the economy, stupid, after all.

Murkier and murkier … the story behind the story of the Islamist slaughter of a U.S. ambassador … and administration lies about Libya … where a totally unnecessary intervention by the United States and NATO destroyed a country and threatens to put Al Qaeda in power. Read more.

All governments lie--it's a given. But the Obama administration's lies about Libya … to protect the almighty narrative of an administration-defeated Al Qaeda … and the absurd notion of oxymoronic "moderate" radical (rightwing political) Islam, or Islamism … could affect the outcome of the 2012 Presidential race.

A devastating report on the deteriorating situation in Libya, where the United States under President Obama and NATO needlessly intervened in an Islamist-led uprising--on the Islamist side. There is evidence that the Obama administration purposely hid information on the Al Qaeda advance.Read more.

Iran's Man in S. America Vows to Deepen His Revolution

Reuters reports: "The new six-year term will let Chavez consolidate his control over Venezuela's economy, possibly by extending a wave of nationalizations, and continue his support for left-wing allies in Latin America and around the world."

Venezuelans went to the polls today; and their tropical Mussolini, Hugo Chavez, desperate to stay in power, has condemned his political opponent--a Catholic with Jewish roots--as a "Zionist." Which is par for the course for the Iran-backed Crackpot of Caracas, who has allowed Iran's Lebanese proxy, Hitlerian Hezbollah, to establish terrorist cells in the strategically situated South American country.

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Like Believing in Moderate Nazism or Moderate Maoism

As if to support the Obama administration's pro-Islamist policy ahead of the foreign affairs-focused Presidential campaign debate, the New York Times, following the appeasement line, is promoting the odious notion of "moderate" Islamism--akin to moderate Nazism, or moderate Stalinism, or moderate Maoism. Click here to read the Times' piece (of political propaganda attempting to pass as journalistic reporting and analysis).

Will Obama Throw Abdullah Under the Bus?

Islamism is rising in Jordan--click here for the story--where Palestinians, who constitute a majority of the population, are increasingly restive as a result of the regime's apartheid policies.

Prediction: the so-called Arab Spring will soon threaten to topple the Jordanian monarch; and the Obama administration, in line with its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, will effectively embolden the Islamist insurrection, which will be led by the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood but will also include even more extreme, so-called Salafist elements, including, as was the case in Libya and as in the case in Syria, outright Al Qaeda sympathizers.

Endnote: Jordan is Palestine, of course--that is to say, most of historic Palestine. But an Islamist/Palestinian overthrow of the pro-Western regime would be a menacing development for both Israel, with which Jordan has been at peace since 1994, and the United States, Jordan's longtime ally. On the one hand, the King's ouster would put an end to the irrational international obsession with creating a third Arab state in historic Palestine, after Jordan and the de facto, Hamas-ruled Gaza mini-state; on the other hand, the Muslim Brotherhood would most likely take power in Amman, following the (Obama-assisted) Egyptian model. Should that happen, Israel would be faced with three Islamist neighbors, including Hezbollah-run Lebanon and assuming Gaza links up with the new Jordan-Palestine. Make that four Islamist neighbors should the U.S.-aided Islamist overthrow of the Syrian regime put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Damascus, capital of Israel's still secular, but steadily Islamizing other northern neighbor.

The Islamist encirclement of Israel is proceeding--and accelerating--thanks in large measure to the Obama administration's alignment with rightwing political Islam. Under political cover of decimating Al Qaeda and killing its leader, the monster Osama Bin Laden (will Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney explain this during the next Presidential campaign debate?), the administration has narrowed the definition of the Islamist enemy to the terrorist group alone while appeasing and engaging or attempting to engage (collaborate with) practically all other Islamist organizations and regimes, including Islamist-led Turkey--Iran's imperialist rival--which is aiming to revive the Ottoman Empire.

Even if current events in Iran lead to a "Persian Spring," the administration (assuming it is or remains in power when and if this happens) is more likely to support reform rather than revolution in Iran. Real regime change is not favored by the administration, which believes in oxymoronic "moderate" radical (rightwing political) Islam, regarding the clerical fascist creed as fundamentally (no pun intended) unstoppable and inherently progressive--a force that is somehow on the right (again, no pun intended) side of history, in sync with its "moral arc," etc.

Friday, October 05, 2012

Another point: there needs to be truly meaningful deterrence against an anonymous atomic attack. The President of the United States should let the nation's enemies know that if it is ever struck by a nuclear weapon of any kind, retaliation--using nuclear weapons--will be immediate and automatic. All suspect nations will be obliterated.

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

After World War II the US government dumped millions of kilograms of unexploded bombs into the Gulf of Mexico. This is no secret; many governments dumped their unexploded ordnance into oceans and lakes from 1946 up until the 1970s when it was made illegal under international treaty.

Now that technology has advanced enough for oil companies to drill deep sea wells in the Gulf of Mexico, those forgotten payloads have become a real hazard.

The US designated certain areas around its coast for the safe dumping of explosives, nerve gas, and mustard gas. The problem is that the records of where these munitions were dumped are incomplete, and many experts believe that a lot of cargo was dumped outside of the designated areas. Now, decades later, no one has any idea of where the bombs are, exactly how many were dumped, or if they still pose a threat to humans or marine life.

William Bryant, a Texas A&M University professor of oceanography, summarised the situation by saying that the “bombs are a threat today and no one knows how to deal with the situation. If chemical agents are leaking from some of them, that's a real problem. If many of them are still capable of exploding, that's another big problem.”

In 2011 BP had to close down its Forties crude oil pipe in the North Sea, which carries 40% of the UK’s oil production, after they found a four metre unexploded German mine laying just next to it. The giant mine was found during a routine inspection of the pipeline, and forced its closure for five days whilst engineers attempted to safely remove it and transport a safe distance away to be detonated.

Professor Bryant remarked that he has come across 227 kg bombs off the coast of Texas and well outside the designated dumping grounds. He also said that at least one pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico had been laid across a chemical weapons dump site.

Terrance Long, the founder of the underwater munitions conference, said “it makes more sense to start dealing with the munitions from a risk-mitigation standpoint to be able to conduct operations in those areas rather than trying to avoid that they are there.”

Foreign Confidential™ comment: The despotic Syrian regime was contained, stopped from allowing Iran to establish nuclear and missile bases in the Arab country that borders Israel and has never made peace with the Jewish State. So what was the U.S. rationale behind supporting and perhaps even stirring up an Islamist uprising in Syria? What was the thinking behind backing an insurrection that threatens to turn a still secular (but steadily Islamizing) Arab nation into another Muslim Brotherhood outpost--a revolt that has already made the country a magnet for Al Qaeda killers while worsening U.S. relations with Russia, Syria's longtime ally, which understandably fears Islamist encroachment, at precisely the time when Moscow's cooperation with Washington with regard to the Iranian nuclear threat could be crucial? Nothing about this bloody mess makes sense.

Show of Weakness by Washington

In a move that will certainly be seen as signaling defeat and weakness, the United States, which needlessly intervened in Libya's Islamist revolution--on the Islamist side--has withdrawn all diplomatic personnel from the city in which the U.S. ambassador was slaughtered by Al Qaeda. Click here for the story.

The Taliban, an enemy force that should have been obliterated in Afghanistan along with Al Qaeda within hours or days of 9/11 … by any and all means necessary … is fighting to retake the country and applauding insider attacks on NATO troops. Read more.